Campaign Myth-Management | Other Voices, Other Runes
Campaign Myth-Management
Campaign Myth-Management was first published in Questlines I, as part of
'Prax-is', a three essay series on game practice.
There are three things that have always appealed to me about Glorantha: its all-pervasive mythic structure, its elaborate and lovingly created history and culture, and its wacky Californian sense of fun. MOB has talked about the fun, and Peter Metcalfe about the detail, so I'll round off this section with a few words about myth.
What do I mean by myth? Basically a myth is a story that provides an explanation about the universe and your place within it, a story that you invest with meaning. A myth is a tale where ideas are tested — ideas about who you are, how you should act, and how you might begin to understand your place and purpose within the world.
Myth is mirror. Myth is mindscape. Myth is ‘good to think’.
Its not so much that myths provide the answers, but they are the tools by which a group agrees to think about the questions they pose. This is why they are so versatile, and why they survive ongoing re-interpretation over time. Myths frame the questions and provide the categories that we use to think about the answers. They predispose us to think in certain ways).
Myths are playful and work on many levels: they don't come pre-digested like prime-time tv. They always leave room for your own response. A myth is sensitive to the numinous and the sacred, but it can also be earthy and even lewd, cutting through taboos and sensitivities that might otherwise keep you from realisation. You need to work at a myth, put in an effort to understand how it applies to you and your situation.
Glorantha As Mindscape
Now the need to create worlds like Glorantha is something fundamentally human. Whether we tell our stories around a flickering campfire or across the ghostly bandwidths of the Internet, we need to share ideas about what is important and sacred and true, about who we are and what we want to be. Everybody needs their mythic fix.
Glorantha, though a recent creation, has a long and distinguished ancestry. It’s a contemporary example of a shared fantasy world, a psychological and social creation whose ancestors include Gilgamesh and Dante, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Journey to the West (Monkey), Edward Abbott Abbott’s Flatland and the thought worlds of Albert Einstein. To enter the mindscape of Glorantha is begin an other-worldly journey. Throughout human history, such journeys have served as vehicles for our hopes, fantasies, and wildest dreams, places of wonder and adventure, testing grounds for our conceptions of what can and cannot be.
Glorantha participates in this ancient tradition, albeit in a new form: a shared cosmos explored primarily through group roleplaying. Yet like its ancestors (many of whom loom large in the structure of Glorantha itself) it is a mindspace, a mirror and magnifying lens for our imagination. It presents itself as a frontier and a mystery, a place to experience adventure and wonder.
It is also significant that Glorantha emphasises humour and enjoyment in a big way. Rather than for some religious, spiritual or literary purpose (the genesis of most shared worlds), Glorantha was created to be a fun place to visit. And no matter how rabid our power gaming or fervid our scholarship or myth-making, its always good to keep this fact in mind.
Glorantha provides multiple layers of mythic meaning. The world itself is a myth; fluid, open to many interpretations, semiotically charged and awash with possibility. Then there are those stories native to it — Godtime and hero stories such as the Orlanthi Lightbringers’ Quest or the Doraddi First Ancestor Whistling Song. Finally, there are the myths that we create when we enter the world through our roleplaying: myths that derive from the situations, characters and stories we build; myths that explore truths not so much about Glorantha as about ourselves and the way that we view our own world.
Its this second dimension that I want to reflect upon: Glorantha as a mindscape devoted to exploring our own assumptions and outlooks. Glorantha provides a wonder-full playground where we can explore issues that are meaningful to us — sexuality, identity, power, gender, community — and where we can test, if we wish, the myths that propel our own lives: those unconscious and largely unquestioned myths of western culture that shape the way we view the world.
This article is about bringing forward and consciously sharing the mythological dimensions of your Gloranthan campaign. Its about investing the tribes, events and characters you create with an added dimension of meaning, for added pleasure, greater challenge, and maximum game fun.
The Twin Visions of Glorantha
Paradoxically, some of the structures and methods we use in exploring Glorantha actually hinder us from appreciating its mythic dimensions. This is because the world as we presently know it springs not from one but two distinct sources.
The first is provided by Greg Stafford, Glorantha’s prime creator and chief shaman, standing with Joseph Campbell at his right shoulder and Snorri Snurluson at his left. Greg’s thirty year vision-quest has given Glorantha its basic structure, its intricate history and its mythic resonance. Greg is also responsible for much of the world’s wackiness, its Californian humour and its off-beat surprises.
The second vision is more implicit, and somewhat less central. Through the RuneQuest rules system, Glorantha bears the stamp of a particular style of male fantasy roleplaying dominant in the late seventies. This vision emphasises accessibility, simplicity and heroism, but, being only a step or two removed from its wargaming ancestors, concentrates on combat, lone adventuring and exotic monster-bashing. Anything beyond these particular themes — for example the dynamics of family, society and religion — are abstracted or ignored for the sake of simplicity and fluidity.
And that can be the problem. Much of roleplaying takes the rich and multi-layered symbolism of fantasy and reduces it to a series of die roles and combats. Though they share the same lexicon of symbols and events — quests and kingship and exotic animals and dark things lurking in the shadows, traditional roleplaying uses it mainly to colour in the background. Spirits are less numinous presences than power batteries, spirituality less a way of understanding the universe than a source of (combat) spells. Such a vision doesn't invite us to explore the meaning of the tales we weave. It invites us to hit things.
These two visions of Glorantha: one emphasising symbol and story, the other simplicity and abstraction, stand in creative tension. Together, they constitute much of what Glorantha is about, and together they raise the broader issue of what roleplaying — our roleplaying — is, and what it can be if we so wish.
The two visions are not, however, irreconcilable. Judging the correct balance is a personal choice depending on a player’s interest, sense of challenge and gift of fun. It will be different for every player and every campaign. You can’t just build mythic resonance into a set of rules (though you can develop dramatic and storytelling ‘rules’ and other techniques to assist you). The added dimension comes about through a rediscovery of the magic of storytelling (roleplaying’s true ancestor), through a commitment to group creativity, and through a willingness to consciously reflect on the underlying themes and symbols of a campaign.
Themes and Symbols
When you run or play in a Gloranthan campaign, you are creating your own myth. You do this explicitly through the stories you weave, and implicitly through your characters, their mindset and motivations, actions and reactions, world-view and life-goals. Some of that myth reflects Glorantha, some of it reflects you, and some of it reflects the combined creativity of your roleplaying group. Consciously or not, your campaign will have certain themes and preoccupations, even if it is simply the power of courage, the glory of weaponry, and the ultimate triumph of Us over Them.
One way to increase the mythic-resonance of your campaign is to consciously identify the three or four themes you wish to explore. Name them, think through their implications, discuss them with your group, and then (if you are gamesmaster) consciously introduce them through the use of characters and events that reflect upon them in play.
Campaign themes might be psychological, moral, political, spiritual, political, social, or geographical. Common and powerful ones for a Gloranthan campaign include the relative roles and qualities of men and women, the worth of the individual versus the community, the role and meaning of spirituality, the usefulness or otherwise of material wealth, the interconnections of a people and its land, and the way in which ideals are corrupted by power. Perhaps the most powerful one of all (for it is the base of the mythological hero quest in all its guises) is what I call the lifequest — the struggle for human ‘wholeness’, wisdom and maturity; the desire to build a rounded and adult personality that means something more than having 180% with a broadsword.
Once you have named your campaign themes, you need to make explicit the difference between your own thoughts on the theme to be explored and those of your character. Firstly, identify what you think about the theme in question. Secondly, make clear what your character believes. Thirdly, begin to bring it all back home by reflecting on the differences between your views and those of your character, and the implications of those differences. Finally, as the campaign develops, you might note how the views of your character have changed over time, and even how your own ideas have been modified.
To properly develop most of the above themes, player-characters need to properly connect with their community: to witness, face and deal with the full implications of their actions. Such a sense of connection can be difficult to achieve using the traditional model of two humans, a troll, a duck and a dwarf travelling the world in search of gold and experience checks, with little or no connection to kith or kin. A stable and constant background helps to develop fully-rounded, three-dimensional characters, for much of our identity springs from community, land and family history. To use Greg Stafford’s terminology, we need to develop the mesocosm (the social world, the middle world of shared and debated meaning), because it is the link between the microcosm (the inner world of personal meaning) and the macrocosm (the world of universal meaning, the heroplane and godplane).
Connect and Resonate
For MOB, the magic word is fun. For Peter, it is loophole. For me, the magic word is resonate!
Resonance means that elements in the game landscape — themes, objects, plot elements and events — are chosen not only as a story in themselves but because they resonate with a character’s (and hence, obliquely, with a player’s) goals, dreams, obsessions and failings. These symbols assist a character to give form and expression to their inner landscape by bringing such qualities into the shared story of the game. The quest for a sword reflects the search for wholeness and integrity; the sighting of a cloudpiercer reminds a Vingan warrior of the hunting life and clan she has left behind; frequent and successful broo raids against a stead reflect the broken and resentful relationship between an Elmali Sun Carl and his Orlanthi lord. There is nothing new in this; its what myth and storytelling have always been about, but the dice and rules framework of rpgs can easily overshadow the symbolic and expressive dimensions of a story.
It helps that most inhabitants of Glorantha itself hold that everything is sacred, that everything is meaningful. Their landscape is alive with portents to be divined; while spirits and animals provide signs and omens to be interpreted by the wise. Through the persona of their characters, players can use this attribute to comment and reflect upon their own developing stories.
It is primarily the gamemaster’s role is to draw out this dimension in play. The main tool is dialogue with players — asking questions that draw out a character’s feelings and emotional responses to events, giving them cause to speak about (and so bring into the province of the game) their doubts, conceits and prejudices. The personal dimensions of motivation should be drawn out as well — the need for respect, the need to be whole, the need to heal inner wounds. The game technique of ‘Internal Dialogue’ (where the gamesmaster argues from the perspective of a character’s good or bad conscience) is especially effective. "Why did you do that?" "You're jealous, aren't you?" "You can never obey her orders!", "You're still in love with that Lunar princess, that’s who you're thinking of!"
The gamesmaster should remember too that every victory has its shadow, and every defeat its lesson; that human motivation is seldom black or white. It can be constructive to present a player with a similar challenge on three or four different occasions (another device from the realm of storytelling), with each new challenge having greater and greater implications.
Not only do techniques such as these open your campaign to entire new realms, but players will begin to use these devices at their own initiative, drawing out symbolic elements, adding to the mythic resonance, and contributing substantially to the ongoing collective story.
Loving the Detail
Thirty years after its creation, most of the basic structures of Glorantha have been set in place. A variety of publications continue to detail and expand Gloranthan history, mythology, myth-tory, and culture. The goal and challenge for those of us running Gloranthan campaigns is to take these disparate and sometimes contradictory sources and fill in the detail and meaning, to think through the implications and put flesh on the bare bone of Gloranthan reality.
Thinking through the implications of customs, spells, rituals and kinship has for me always been one of the fun things about Glorantha. There’s something wonderful about seeing entire social systems begin to make sense as your game progresses. However, tying down all the loose ends is definitely not something to attempt all at once. When you begin a campaign, lay down the broad picture, but leave plenty of room for player input and future expansion. When a puzzle comes up, think through the implications, do a little research if necessary, and be prepared to make a subtle back-adjustment to your version of Gloranthan reality.
For example, in the Far Point campaign I run, intrepid Orlanthi cattle raiders have come across a perplexing problem. The harsh winters mean that cattle must be kept in byrnes during Dark Season, and only a limited number can be housed and fed through the long winter. Do you spend a glorious year raiding, only to have your newly-liberated cattle starve or freeze to death? Do you butcher most of your herd? Silly question. But what to do? Since Upland culture values herds and not coinage (cattle are coinage!) selling them goes against the very reason you raided in the first place.
Thinking the problem through, our group came up with a number of options – all of which have significant implications for our game society. We could employ trollkin as domestic animals to gather more winter feed. (Lots of religious complications there, not to mention the Uz themselves). We could insult a neighbouring clan so that so that we get ourselves raided in late Earth Season, gaining right of legal counter-raid in early Sea Season. (A typical pc response that one, but probably only a short-term solution). Or we could lend the cattle to lowland earth-reapers (farming types) who can look after them through the winter and pay us back in future calves. (The social and political implications of that are enormous). As I write, our great bronze age social experiment continues. Of course, these questions would really have been faced by our ancestors generations ago, so when we decide on the outcome, we will have to retro-adjust Far Point reality.
Obviously, the game background can be developed in the same way. The Taroskarla (the Far Place founding myth) was originally just a couple of names and a single date scratched in my notebook. It fed and grew from the themes we developed in the course of play. And continues to develop: we've decided the progression of seven animals mentioned in the myth has a special significance, and so we are exploring and expanding the first – the story of Jumping Mouse and his quest for the Sacred Mountains.
Involve your players in the process of creation as fully as possible. If, for example, some pcs are hunters, let them name the features and create the stories of the landscape they know best. Every ford, every mountain will have significance, reflecting the deeds of the gods and of their ancestors. Ask them what the stories are. Give them opportunity to co-create.
A myth never provides a complete answer: it always leaves room for your own response. Glorantha is a mythic landscape, deriving its form and its meaning from your creative input. There is no "one true world", there are countless variations on a basic myth. You can use it to enforce your existing ideas, or to explore and test them. And that’s one of the reasons Glorantha is so engrossing, so challenging, and so much damned fun.
Over Voices, Other Runes
Here are some of the gamesmastering principles espoused by the the original creators of Glorantha and RuneQuest, reproduced from the Internet Glorantha Digest with thanks to Rich Statts:
The Stafford Principle: As a GM, it is important to maintain a sense of wonder in the world. It is not possible for any mortal to fully understand the workings of Glorantha, and to do so takes away from the pleasure of the unexpected. A dragonewt won't do the same thing every time you encounter one. Leave room in your campaigns for the unexplained, the mystic and the mythic. No matter how much you learn and experience, there is always more to discover.
The Perrin Principle: As a GM, consistency is desirable, and what you do (although important) is not so significant as that you understand why you did it. If similar circumstances arise again and the characters involved undertake the same actions, they should reasonably expect similar results. This helps the gamers become comfortable with the gaming milieu. They will be able to picture the world in their minds during and between sessions. This adds to a sense of fairness and balance in the gaming world and the campaign.
The Petersen Principle: As a GM, you should do things that make the campaign fun. If you have a choice between two courses of action, choose the one that will bring the most enjoyment to the GM and the party. The party will come up with things you never expected, and these plans and explanations might not bear any resemblance to what you anticipated. So what!?! If the new explanations are more fun and overall consistent with the workings of the world, go with them!
Footnotes
N1. The Fall Of Man story in the Book of Genesis, for example, originated as a political allegory against the dangers of dealing with Canaanite religion and Canaanite kings. Over time, its status changed to that of a sacred myth, and it has been used by western civilisation as a source text that continues to guide the way we think about who we are, our place in the world, and our ultimate destiny. [Return].
N2. Megaloceros, the giant Irish elk, whose antlers were larger than any living deer. Extinct in our world, but still hunted in the gors and gallt of Far Point. [Return].
N3. Our solution is unfolding. Jeff Richards is running a similar campaign, and through the RuneQuest Digest, gave me a tremendously useful reference: Nerys Patterson’s Cattle Lords & Clansmen (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), a detailed look at early Irish society. Patterson explains how a society can be built around the exchange of cattle. The game background told us that cattle were prestige items, but now I am beginning to understand exactly why. [Return].